Elder
by AnnaDruvez
Summary: Some doors should not be opened.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer**  
I don't own Stargate,  
though that would be awesome.  
I also don't own the writings of a certain person  
mentioned in the last paragraph.

SG-1 stepped down from the dais the Stargate rested upon. The temple that housed it was massive. Daniel looked up and stared at the vaulted ceiling, approximately six stories above him, for a few minutes. It appeared to be a deep green marble with black striations. He wasn't an expert in structural engineering, but this architecture was beyond most cultures. Especially since the room was at least the size of a football field and the columns supporting the ceiling were almost delicate in their thin fragility. There were also no seams to indicate that they were made of more than a single piece.

"Ideas?" Colonel Jack O'Neil didn't face them, keeping his attention constantly roving for threats.

"This is..." Samantha Carter gave one last appreciative glance around. "Based on the materials, this structure is impossible. The distance between the columns alone would mean the ceiling would crumble in on the builders before they finished."

Teal'c nodded, his expression was admiring but grim. Most advanced cultures they'd run into had been dismissive at best. "I have never seen it's like."

"Daniel?"

"I don't think this was built the way we're used to. Look at the columns – I don't think they're more than a single worked piece. And, the carvings on the column are strange." He moved closer to one. "This looks almost like... an octopus?"

"I suppose he does rather look like one." Jack's P-90 moved into a ready position when a female stepped out from behind a column – one that was far too thin to hide her standing behind it. The girl, she couldn't have been more than fifteen, raised an amused eyebrow at his weapon but didn't comment.

"Um... Hello. Are your parents around?"

"My dear child, I'm older than your civilization." She smirked, walking towards them in a smooth glide. Jack blinked at her, and her vivid, acid-green eyes filled with the same sympathy one might offer a toddler attempting its first steps. "I am not human, dear. This form is so that we can communicate."

"Right. So, I'm Colonel Jack O'Neil, this is Captain Samantha Carter, Doctor Daniel Jackson, and Teal'c." He refused to get sidetracked wondering if the green-black sheen to her hair was natural and why it seemed to try to clump into tendrils every now and then without her prompting. "Who might you be?"

"I am Eli'nata'yrath." A small smile curved her full lips. Their dark, hunter green shade contrasted her pale skin vividly. "Though, our last visitor preferred to call me Elinra once he stopped being so formal. We had many interesting discussions. It has been a short time since he has dreamed his way to our home. I find myself wondering when he will do so again. Perhaps he will do so while you are here."

"Last visitor?" Daniel was doing his best to ignore the shadow of.. _something.._ behind Lin's slender body. Whatever it was was huge. Somehow bigger than the room they were in and yet fitting inside easily. The others, meanwhile, were trying to decide what she meant by him "dreaming himself" here.

"Mmm. His name was Howard. He was quite fascinated by tales of my children." Her smile widened and allowed wickedly sharp teeth to show. "I understand strangers called him Mr. Lovecraft."


	2. Chapter 2

_**Note**_

 _I had not intended to add to this, but this little bit came in the shower. As it's just... weird... I thought I'd share my madness with others._

* * *

Jack watched as Elinra spoke with Daniel. They'd been here several days, despite her warning that some of them might become unstable due to contact with her species. Daniel had argued against staying, but Jack knew it was for the best. After all, these powerful entities didn't seem to mind their presence, though she seemed to think their desire to stay was... saddening, somehow.

He shrugged. Daniel did seem to spend a lot of time with the woman. And he just seemed to get more and more depressed. Maybe he should bring him a bullet? That might cheer him up. In the meantime, though, he'd better make sure his shovel would have enough twinkies to fire at any hamsters that came through the gate.

* * *

Sam watched Daniel pass by and sighed. Their poor teammate was growing more delusional by the day. Just this morning, he'd insisted Earth's sun was yellow. Everyone knew it was purple, like any young sun! She shook her head and went back to her research. Given time, she was sure that they would be able to unlock the secret of eternal life as granted by the sacred clip.

* * *

Teal'c wandered over to speak with Daniel and Elinra. Or, at least, the form that Elinra puppeteered so that she could more safely speak with them. Daniel's head-fire was a subdued orange today. Teal'c feared that eventually it would extinguish itself.

* * *

Daniel watched Teal'c talk to the column and shared a look with Elinra. One by one, his friends were going insane. Sam, her hair unkempt, was dribbling liquid from what he was fairly sure was a vial of her own urine on a P-90 magazine. Jack was studiously maintaining his camp shovel, P-90 forgotten to one side.

"This is why we left Earth, so long ago." He looked at the being beside him and cocked his head. "We didn't know our presence drove humans mad until a single human managed to tell us of this. Since then, we have not returned."

"But, why do we go mad?" It didn't make sense to him. Why were Sam and Jack effected more than anyone? Why was Teal'c more damaged than he?

"Humans are not able to perceive beyond the first four or five dimensions, and even that much only rarely. We perceive, and exist in the first twenty-seven. Our structures are both large and small, depending on where and when you stand. Our bodies are minute and gargantuan, chaotic and orderly to your eyes... Sadly, the more educated in the sciences, the faster you fall."

"That makes no sense to me."

"The most primitive man, capable of using no tools, would look on us and not change. He would simply accept. He _did_ simply accept. But, the more you question, the more your mind cannot handle the supposed wrongness of what we are."

"Am I going insane?"

"Less so than the others. You are still sane enough to ask the question. I would take comfort in that, at least." She smiled at him, sadly. "The fact is that your mind was ready to ascend to a higher plane. That means you have less difficulty with your perception of our forms. You are less locked inside a rigid structure of thought, so your mind stretches to accommodate more easily."

"Will you send us home?"

"How well would you be treated there?"

He thought back to other examples – his grandfather, the reactions of my SGC scientists to those mentally different – and scrubbed a hand across his face. "We would be... mourned for what we were. I think they'd probably confine us in some sort of facility where we'd be cared for. Some are better than others."

"Here, your friends can wander free, without fear of hurting themselves."

"Jack still has his gun and the bullets to fire it."

"The bullets, yes. I pulled all of your gunpowder into other dimensions shortly after your arrival. I did the same for the power source of Teal'c's staff weapon. They will not fire."

"Oh. How did... Howard... come out of this relatively sane?"

"I believe he thought it was merely a dream, not that he had managed to walk through dimensions with his mind. And, he insulated himself with chemicals when thinking of us."

"Oh. Are the lights here red?"

"No. Our lighting is green to your eyes."

"Oh. So I am going mad. Odd, I didn't think I'd be so comfortable with it." He cleaned his glasses and looked around again. "So, can you tell me one thing? How many dimensions are there?"

She looked thoughtful. "I suppose there is no harm. Though even we cannot view and move through them all, we believe there to be forty-two."

"Douglas Adams should be proud." He met her curious acid-green eyes and chuckled. "Sam gave me his books on my last birthday. He was a writer that specialized in sort of a science parody. The theme of his books was that the ultimate answer to the ultimate question about Life, the Universe, and Everything was forty-two. The problem, of course, was that no one knew what the question was."

Elinra chuckled. "That does sound like it would be a problem."

"How long have we been here?"

"If I understand your time conventions, then six months. If not, then I'm afraid that is still my best answer."

"Did anyone warn the others to stay away?"

"You did."

"Oh. That's good." He sighed. "Is it safe for me to write about you?"

"Somewhat. If it is what you want to do, I will not stop you."

"Then, yes, please. Tell me about your people."

"Very well, let's go sit." A limb wrapped around him to guide him to a bench that formed out of nothingness. He ignored the strangeness of the mysteriously forming bench. The limb, though...

Part of him wanted to call it an arm, part thought of it as a tentacle, and part was shying away from classifying it at all. After a moment, he just decided that limb was sufficient. If just accepting and leaving it alone was the way to stay at least a little sane, then that was what he would do. He stopped moving as a thought occurred to him.

"Am I really talking to you? Or am I talking to nothing, like Teal'c? Or is he really talking to you and I'm talking to myself?"

"Does it matter?"

"I suppose not."


End file.
